(It Was You) Breathless and Torn
by sbgrrl
Summary: Tag to 5.04. Gen with pre-slash hints. Danny and Steve, after.


**Quick note: Haven't posted here in ages. I tend to write Steve/Danny and I'm old school - I remember when this site was pretty well gen only, so most of my stuff is elsewhere. This one's on the gen side of slash, thought I'd share. **

_(It Was You) Breathless and Torn_

In the wake of so much violence and death, the basement was quiet enough that it was almost suffocating. Motes of dust and dirt drifted through the few patches of light, distractions that seemed somehow noisy in the stillness. Steve had seen more than his fair share of death. He had been an active participant in far worse than had gone down here, but this wasn't him. This was _Danny_, the man who had started out so stalwart about police procedure who had slowly, surely demonstrated how far he was willing to go, showed that beneath the rigid by-the-books façade was someone ready to push if he had to.

Had Reyes been left alive, Steve knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would have eventually found some reason to call on Danny again, sucking his partner deeper and deeper in by using the weaknesses Danny wore on his sleeve against him. Anyone who knew Danny well knew that he would do anything for family. It was clear that Reyes had taken great care to learn as much about Danny as possible and had known exactly how to goad Danny as well. He clenched his jaw at the memory of Reyes's unsubtle threat to Grace. It was a fine line, Steve thought, between weakness and strength; circumstance would always be the deciding factor.

The kill was definitely justified. He knew the satisfaction he was experiencing himself over it was on Danny's behalf. As far as Steve was concerned, what Danny had done was a necessary evil, the kind born under the broad umbrella of doing the right thing. His partner had earned the right to vengeance. Steve's attention, pinned on Danny since they'd come back downstairs, flicked first to Reyes's corpse spread on the table and then to the barrel.

He'd known the second Reyes had calmly agreed to bring Matt out that it wasn't good, had suspected as much from minute one though he'd tried to bolster Danny's hopes. He frowned. Danny was fatalistic when it came to his own life, but until the moment he saw the barrel and what it meant sank in, Danny had wanted to believe his brother was alive. Steve swallowed a few times, sick at the thought of someone Danny loved being folded and stuffed inside that innocuous-looking container.

He took a shaky breath, a slow line of sweat trailed down the center of his back. He'd seen many things in his life, yes, but the idea of a loved one stuffed into a barrel to rot was horrendous, incredibly personal and real. Sick. He barely knew Matt and what he did was primarily through Danny; his upset was _for_ Danny, his feelings a direct result of his connection to his partner. If it was affecting him at this level, how much worse must it be for Danny? He refocused on Danny, whose shoulders were stiff and squared, as solid as ever.

Then he took a shuffling step forward, which startled Danny into spinning around and staring at him. Steve understood immediately, catching sight of Danny's face, how he'd made an error. He'd wanted to give Danny the control and the choice. He'd thought that was the right call, though he'd been prepared to dispatch Reyes himself if it came down to it. Jesus, he didn't have the words to describe Danny's expression, the hollow, wet gulf that had become his eyes. It was layered primal gratification, grief and guilt, horror and shock and too many things to even know where it stopped.

"Danny," Steve said and in that one word was _I'm here _and _it's going to be okay_ and _I'm so sorry_. A sudden burst of anger filled him. If he could, he'd resurrect Reyes and kill him again and again until he'd sufficiently paid for the way Danny stood there, destroyed. God help him, he felt almost as much rage against Matt for making choices that had led to all of this. "Danny."

The only response he got was that sound, the one Danny always made when he was trying desperately to keep it together. He seemed puzzled to see Steve there, and slowly raised his right hand to look at the weapon in it. He dropped it. It hit the floor with a loud thud that made him jerk slightly.

From Steve's perspective, it looked like Danny was going to follow the gun down. He set the rifle he'd acquired from one of the dead guys upstairs on the floor, moved closer. He had to be there, ready for Danny to react somehow. Jesus, Danny's _face_. He was never going to be able to shake it. To him, it was the most powerful of the three ghosts occupying this room. He could help Danny clean up after Reyes. He could help get Matt home. He could help with the eighteen million dollars that had cost Danny a far greater sum.

He could never, ever fix what was on Danny's face right now, or what lay beneath it.

"I don't, uh, I don't …" Danny said, breathless. He hunched slightly, his legs looking like they were going to give on him even as he darted for a corner.

Steve cringed at the retching and the liquid splat that followed. As a SEAL, his instinct was to allow Danny to experience that physical manifestation of emotional distress in relative dignity. As a friend, one who was prepared to do anything, _be _anything for Danny, the one halfway in stupid love with the guy, Steve went to Danny's side and caught him as he was crumpling to the floor. Held him through the shakes of adrenaline dump and anguish, until Danny pulled away and straightened.

"It's fine. I'm okay." Danny's voice was craggy and anything other than okay. "I'm okay."

"Danny," Steve said, at a loss as to what to say next. There was nothing to be said that wouldn't seem empty.

Danny looked at him with watery, bleak eyes, but his attention quickly fixed elsewhere on a point beyond Steve's shoulder. His face, pale and wrecked, hardened slightly, as if willing up resolve. He was as the barrel and the hand truck it was strapped to before Steve could blink, tearing at the ropes with frenetic energy. Steve got it. He truly did. But, fuck. No.

"Danny, don't," Steve said. He tugged at Danny's shoulders, wrapped an arm around Danny's waist and physically pulled him away. "You don't want to do that."

"Don't tell me what I do and don't want to do," Danny said, his tone somehow dull and angry at the same time. "Let me go, damn it."

"Trust me, please. Please, Danny." Steve strong-armed Danny back a few paces and stood like a sentry between his partner and the macabre sight of his brother stuffed in an oil drum. "You've been through enough. You've done enough. It isn't going to help you to see Matt that way. Please, let me make some calls. We'll do this right."

"There can't be any right." Danny was gasping his breaths now. He pointed at the barrel. "Only … my brother. Steve, Jesus, Steve, that's _my brother_ in there."

"I know," Steve said quietly.

He put his hand on Danny's chest, both to stop him from surging toward the barrel again and to monitor that racing, broken heart. Steve wished he could make this all better, but the next few days – weeks, months – were going to be awful. Danny felt everything so deeply.

"My bru … my brother," Danny said again, his face shifting again, pain showing there nakedly now. "Steve."

They didn't have the luxury of time. In the back of his mind, Steve knew this. One didn't meet with a prominent drug lord on his turf, engage in gunfire and expect to be left alone for long. He knew all of this. It was all catalogued information, as was the need to keep an eye on the clock. A plan was needed sooner rather than later as well, but right at this precise moment he could not let any of that be the priority. The priority was standing in front of him, wholly undone, forever changed and yet still _everything_ that Danny was. Everything to him. Steve knew how to read his partner. He saw the exact moment Danny's face cleared of all other emotions but an intense need for human comfort.

"I've got you, Danny." Steve shifted, drew Danny into him, tucked him close. He pressed his face against Danny's neck. "I'm not going to let you go through this alone."

Danny wrapped his arms around Steve's back and up, clung to Steve's shoulders. For a few brief seconds, he was still. Danny wrapped his arms around Steve's back and up, clung to Steve's shoulders. For a few brief seconds, he was still. Despite the stifling heat, Danny first began to shiver, then those shivers gradually increased into wracked trembles as he broke down and sobbed so hard finally that both of them shook with the force of his heartache.

Steve's eyes filled with his own tears as he held on tight, determined that while he knew couldn't fix Danny, at least he could bear the weight while Danny let out the first, harshest wave of sorrow. It was what a man did for the people he loved.


End file.
